Deadly Burial

by Jon Richter

  A car accident. People screaming in the road. ‘Knocked down’ was the euphemism they used, because no one liked to think too hard about a little boy, crushed and bleeding like an insect

  ‘It’s all just so fragile,’ he said finally, draining his own bottle.

  She did likewise. ‘I think you think too much. And if it really is all meaningless, doesn’t that mean you should be out somewhere enjoying yourself, living like a hedonist in Ibiza or whatever?’

  He forced a smile. ‘I suppose I’m too much of a worrier for that.’

  ‘Seriously though, it has to mean something, doesn’t it? Otherwise what makes good people different from bad ones? What makes us different from the fucking rabbits?’

  He thought about this. ‘Because we understand what we’ve got. How precious it is. I can’t…’ He felt an outpouring rising suddenly within him, the urge to talk to her about his brother, his grief, his fears and obsessions. He choked it back down. ‘Sometimes I don’t know how other people seem to cope so easily.’

  She tried to drain her beer, then remembered it was already empty, and set it on the bar with a chuckle.

  ‘I think that means I’ve had too many, doesn’t it? And this conversation is getting far too heavy for me, Chris. I can walk home from here, but your hotel’s a bit further – do you want me to get them to call you a taxi? It’s chucking it down outside.’

  That was the first time she had called him by his first name.

  ‘That’s okay – I fancy another walk in the rain. Shall I escort you home? I promise not to talk any more about… atoms.’ He grinned, and she laughed.

  ‘Yeah, all right then. Just remember not to try to snog me on the doorstep – I’ve got my Taser with me.’

  He suspected she wasn’t remotely joking.

  They stumbled out of the pub and immediately had to dash for cover from the rain, which now lashed the island with sadistic glee. Mason muttered a constant stream of curse words as they hurried from a bus shelter to a shop awning and eventually around a corner onto a nondescript street of terraced houses.

  ‘Well, this is my road. I’ll see you tomorrow, partner.’

  He waved as she sprinted towards a red front door. She had been right to suggest a taxi – he was absolutely drenched. Still, it wouldn’t take him long to reach the hotel from here, and he was almost getting used to the island’s unforgiving weather.

  As he walked, he pondered her comments. He talked about how precious life was, but had he ever really cherished it? She seemed so able to relax, to unwind, to be comfortable around a relative stranger like him. He admired her. He liked her. She made him want to be stronger.

  The rabbits hiding in the darkness between the lampposts watched him as he hurried past, a tiny figure battered by the storm.

  *

  He awoke in the throes of a panic attack.

  After his freezing walk, he had enjoyed a hot bath, and a rare sense of peace had settled over him. But in his sleep the immediate present had regained its hold on him, as though his worries had waited patiently for him in his bed, a thousand spiders that had now scuttled in through his ears to dance across his brain. His dreams were plagued by thoughts about the case, concerns about their lack of progress, nagging shreds of clues and connections they had missed. The faces of the many suspects they had interviewed, the strange people they had met. The sneers of his colleagues back on the mainland. The hideous death mask of the man who became a hero when he donned the silver face paint, the courageous Vic Valiant… now reduced to plain old Victor Schultz, the drug addict, cold and dead on a doctor’s table, poked and prodded by strangers in a foreign country. His dying grimace grew larger and larger in Sigurdsson’s mind, contorting into ever more horrifying expressions, as though the wrestler was trying to speak to him, to tell him where he was now, to warn him that it didn’t all just end, abruptly, your life evaporating into the air with your final breath. That Schultz’s suffering was continuing somewhere, somewhere awful, somewhere whose horror was only hinted at in that twisted expression…

  Sigurdsson squeezed his eyes closed, concentrating hard to try to bring his breathing under control. His anxiety attacks were a vicious, downward spiral; irrational panic that induced rapid hyperventilation, which in turn induced a more visceral frenzy as the shortness of breath brought with it a genuine fear of asphyxia. He needed to calm down, to find some stability in this whirling room, its unfamiliar edges visible in the dim glow of moonlight and revolving around him like the gleaming blades of a terrible machine.

  He staggered into the bathroom, knocking things off the sink as he clutched at it, the cool ceramic surface and reassuring solidity making it seem like a huge block of ice. He didn’t care, as long as it would just keep still, anchor him as the world continued to spin. His reflection in the mirror was like a sinister figure observing him through a window. Unnerved, he fumbled behind himself for the light cord as he forced himself to breathe more deeply, in and out, in and out, in. Out. In.

  Out.

  In.

  He could hear the storm raging outside, thunder crashing as though the island was being assailed by distant artillery.

  With a click he finally tugged the light on, revealing in the mirror a haggard and distressed face that gasped along with him as his breathing gradually returned to normal.

  He looked down, suddenly aware of how tightly he was gripping the sink. The whiteness of his knuckles looked like protruding bones. He had to concentrate hard to force his hands open, then cupped them to drink straight from the tap. He looked up at the mirror once again as he splashed cold water into his face. The man depicted there looked somehow unfamiliar – somewhere in his late thirties, face pale and smeared around the cheeks with stubble, dark brown hair thinning and streaked with grey, matching the cool slate of his eyes. He wondered about this man, about his life, a life of amiable pleasantries, hard work, loneliness, self-doubt.

  Fear.

  He stared at the reflection, wondering about the terrified boy that hid behind it, looking at the lines and creases that his hardships and his worries had etched into him. He thought about the skull hidden from view beneath a thin sliver of skin. Death, lurking behind life’s veneer. He wondered if he’d achieved anything, if he’d really moved on at all.

  What was he even really afraid of? What was the worst that could happen to him?

  Rabbit in the headlights.

  There was another huge clap of thunder outside, and then the main bedroom door exploded inwards.

  Sigurdsson barely had time to spin round before the blade had thudded savagely into his pillow. Again and again it hacked at the bedding, carving into strips the sheets where his head and torso had lain just minutes before. All of this seemed to happen in slow motion, yet at the same time infinitely faster than Sigurdsson’s brain could process. It was insane: a man, dressed from head to foot in black, illuminated by the dull glow from the bulb in the bathroom, turning towards the light as he finally realised there was no one in the bed. In his right hand glinted the polished steel of a Japanese-style katana sword.

  A balaclava covered his face but Sigurdsson knew from his immense size that it was undoubtedly Paul Dixon.

  After a pause that seemed like a moment and an eternity – the quiver of a vibrating string inside an electron inside an atom, Sigurdsson’s life playing out before him in an infinity of actions and possibilities and opportunities and decisions that had brought him to this moment – the behemoth launched himself across the room, swinging his sword like Death’s scythe.

  Sigurdsson could do nothing but instinctively collapse backwards and bring his hands up uselessly, closing his eyes in a pitiful denial of this imminent, barbaric death.

  He heard a wooden thunk, a guttural snarl of frustration. He opened his eyes.

  The tip of the sword had sunk into the top of the doorframe, and Dixon was trying to tug it free.

  Over the years, the UK police force has honed
its combat training to perfection. Driven by criminal brutality, the looming threat of terrorism, and ever-decreasing budgets, they pack as much concise and practical tuition as possible into the intensive sessions delivered to new recruits, and the subsequent annual refreshers. When Tasers or batons are not available, the force prescribes hand-to-hand methods based upon aikido, designed to quickly and efficiently subdue an unskilled assailant in a typical confrontation scenario, like a pub brawl, a suspect resisting arrest, a knife attack.

  Not a psychotic giant wielding a razor-sharp samurai sword.

  But the training had one other benefit: like any action repeated over and over until it could be completed without conscious thought – the muscles simply reacting like pre-programmed computer systems – it had ingrained in him an ability to fight instinctively. To improvise.

  The cornered rabbit with nowhere left to run.

  Sigurdsson scrambled to his feet, grabbing a can of deodorant he had knocked to the ground during his earlier seizure (strange – a disconnected part of his brain observed – that when faced with the reality of a horror no longer imagined, he felt suddenly and bizarrely calm), and emptied the contents into the eyes that peered out from Dixon’s balaclava. As he did so, he rammed his other fist as hard as he could into the other man’s groin.

  He cried out immediately, yanking his hand away – Dixon was wearing some sort of protective cup, and Sigurdsson’s fingers felt as though they had been shattered by the impact. But the spray can had been more effective, causing the wrestler to stumble backwards, leaving the sword embedded in the wood as he spluttered and clawed at his eyes. Forcing himself to ignore the protestations from his right hand, Sigurdsson leapt forward and smashed the deodorant can into his assailant’s head. Despite using his less favoured hand, it was by far the hardest he had ever struck anyone in his entire life.

  Dixon barely seemed to register the blow. Instead he swatted the can from Sigurdsson’s grasp with a hand like a bear’s paw, and with the other swung a huge roundhouse towards the detective’s skull.

  Somehow, Sigurdsson was able to pitch forward as he did so, causing Dixon’s sledgehammer fist to miss him by inches. Instead, the inside of the bodybuilder’s arm landed a clubbing blow across Sigurdsson’s ear and temple, even as his forehead drove a desperate headbutt into Dixon’s face.

  Sigurdsson felt as though he had been hit by a swinging tree limb. He was knocked to the side and fell immediately to his knees, a deafening ringing in his left ear that sounded like a hundred simultaneous burglar alarms. His vision blurred and kaleidoscoped as he lurched to his feet, hearing nothing, but discerning through the haze the image of Dixon leaning against a wall, one hand held up to a nose that was gushing blood. Sigurdsson swayed groggily on his feet, his legs quivering beneath him as his vision cleared.

  He felt his fear return in a paralysing wave. He watched, immobilised, as Dixon tore the mask from his face, howling in animal fury as he strode across the room, reaching for the blade and finally yanking it free. Then the gigantic man was pacing towards him, gore dripping between his bared teeth. He swung the sword in a sideways slice towards Sigurdsson’s torso, aiming for the exposed targets of his lungs and kidneys.

  Sigurdsson’s legs gave way. He toppled backwards, causing the attack to miss and instead tear a gash across his chest as he fell. The wound seemed to galvanise his brain, sending a fresh surge of adrenaline coursing through his limbs as he scrambled backwards, reaching for the main door that hung ajar behind him. Dixon advanced and swung the katana in a lethal downward arc. Sigurdsson yanked the door open, the thick wood deflecting the blade as he scuttled out into the hallway.

  He managed to stand, lurching down the corridor as blood-curdling screams echoed around him, before he realised that they were coming from his own throat. The wine-coloured wallpaper seemed to blaze a hellish crimson as his vision fogged again, and he staggered forwards towards the lift doors, his damaged right hand reaching out to push the call button almost reflexively.

  His vision cleared and he saw the red and white tape still stretched across the doors, and remembered that the lift was inoperable. Groaning, he sagged against the cold metal, knocking the ‘engineer called’ sign to the floor, his strength slipping away along with his last chance of escape.

  Dixon was right behind him. Sigurdsson was only half-aware of the colossal hand that reached out to haul him upright, gripping his head as though it were the size of a coconut as his assailant prepared to run him through.

  Through.

  Sigurdsson pivoted as Dixon made his killing thrust, sidestepping the sword’s wicked point and catching his enormous attacker in a whirling embrace. His eyes met the other man’s for a fleeting second, and saw absolute hatred blazing there, before the wrestler’s vast weight and momentum carried him forwards through the opening doors.

  Dixon pitched into the darkness of the lift shaft with an inhuman shriek.

  Even before he could hear the sickening thud of Dixon’s landing, on top of the stationary lift car three floors beneath them, Sigurdsson had collapsed into unconsciousness.

  Excerpt IV: On Immortality

  A lot of people ask me about the drugs, and whether that’s why so many wrestlers die when they’re still young. The truth is I haven’t got a clue – I’m not a fucking doctor. I do know that lots of people were on the juice back in the eighties and early nineties, and I know you can’t argue with the facts when dozens of them are dropping like flies. I’ve lost a lot of friends to heart attacks in the past two decades, and I’m sure more are going to go the same way all too soon. But I also know that this business takes chunks out of your body every night, and that smashing your spine into a wooden floor twenty times a week isn’t going to help your life expectancy either. So I don’t think you can pin it all on the ‘roids. I think it’s probably a combination of things – remember that I’m not the only guy who started wrestling in the eighties, and I’m not the only guy who got hooked on painkillers, and I’m sure as hell not the only guy who went out partying every night.

  But it’s sad, especially when you hear about what’s happening to some of these guys, about the ones who can’t walk no more, or are just gibbering wrecks in homes. That one guy who killed his family and then himself, they said his brain was like an eighty-year-old’s. The business has to start taking some accountability.

  Another popular question is, knowing that this is how it’s turned out for so many people, would I do it all again? And you know what Vic Valiant’s gonna say to that, don’t you? You’re goddamn right I would. Let’s say I would have lived to be a hundred, but instead I’m going to die in two years, because my old ticker ain’t what it used to be. I’ve basically sacrificed half my life to be a star. That doesn’t sound like such a bad deal, does it? Most basketballers and footballers and movie stars don’t get to ply their trade for as long as I’ve had. I’ve basically thrown away the crappy years at the end of my life to live like a king in the good times. Make hay while the sun shines, I think someone said. No one can possibly know what it’s like having a sea of fans chanting your name, until it actually happens to you. It doesn’t matter that it isn’t my real name. To them I’m Vic Valiant, the babyface, the hero. It’s like I was a father, or a brother, or a best pal, or a lover, to thousands of people, all at once.

  I can imagine the conversation up outside the pearly gates, with some old accountant that lived to be ninety-three. He’d be wearing his suit and tie, and I’d be there in my full regalia, the silver tights and the tassels and the boots and black singlet, rocking out to Van Halen.

  ‘Hey man, sorry to see you didn’t last as long as I did.’

  ‘No hard feelings, friend. Did you enjoy yourself?’

  ‘No, I was far too busy working my desk job and providing for my family. What about you?’

  ‘Hell yeah I enjoyed myself!! Now where’s that big old bearded fella… I’m gonna challenge him to a steel cage match!’

  (
I’d better edit that bit out so the evangelists don’t get all uppity and it damages my book sales.)

  So yeah, no regrets, I suppose. That’s a good place to be.

  Except it ain’t true. I’ve got a ton of regrets. The biggest one is missing out on my kids.

  I love all of them equally, little Jesse and Gaia and Symphony. They aren’t so little any more now, of course. I don’t even know when their birthdays are, or how old they are. I know that makes me sound like a real piece of shit. But it’s just so hard when you’re the father, and your wife divorces you, and you’re on tour all the time. What else can you do other than beg her to bring them to your shows, and hate her guts when she doesn’t? I remember all the times I’d come through the curtain, smiling and pointing at the fans, and all the while I was secretly scanning the crowd thinking that maybe I’d see them all there in the front row, to surprise me.

  I wouldn’t want them to come now. Not while I’m in the shape I’m in, and wrestling in this toilet promotion, and don’t have two nickels to rub together. And they wouldn’t want to come anyways, of course. The last time I spoke to Tanya she told me Jesse was living out in Vegas as a croupier. He’s probably a waiter, I said. If you read this someday, son, I’m happy whatever you’re doing, even if you’re a goddamn rent boy. Just make sure you stay out of trouble and call your mother and let her know you’re safe. Gaia and Symphony are both still at school, and the lady I’m living with showed me some online photos of them recently, and they are both beautiful, like I knew they would be, and I hope they’re breaking hearts all over the place, just like their old dad used to do.

  Kids, I always get tearful when I think of you, and sure enough it’s happening now while I’m writing this. That must count for something.